With Phara Khenchen Rinpoche (Tulku-la) & Di Carroll, Friday 30th October – Sunday 1st November. 

Tibetan Buddhism is a rich spiritual tradition that combines philosophical teachings, meditation practices, and ways of living with compassion and wisdom. It offers practical guidance for understanding the mind, working with emotions, and developing clarity, kindness, and insight.

This weekend retreat is a short introduction, designed for anyone curious about Tibetan Buddhism who wants to learn a little and see if they would like to explore further. You’ll touch on foundational Buddhist concepts such as bodhicitta (the mind of awakening), wisdom, ethical conduct, karma, the Four Noble Truths, the Eightfold Path, rebirth, impermanence, death and dying, and taking refuge in the Three Jewels.

No prior experience is needed — you can come simply curious and see how these teachings resonate with you.

With Ven Mary Reavey: Thursday 5th – Sunday 8th November (FULLY BOOKED, WAIT LIST AVAILABLE)

Emptiness lies at the heart of the Buddha’s wisdom: the key to freedom from confusion and the source of genuine compassion. Over the course of this retreat, Ven Mary will guide you through a step-by-step exploration of emptiness as presented in the Tibetan Buddhist tradition, drawing inspiration from the works of great masters such as Je Tsongkhapa.

Through a balance of study, reflection, and meditation, you’ll have the opportunity to engage both intellectually and experientially with this essential teaching — discovering how understanding the dependent nature of reality can bring greater clarity, peace, and kindness into everyday life.

With Andy Wistreich: Saturday 14th – Saturday 28th November.

Land of Joy warmly welcomes practitioners to a Kalachakra Six-Session Guru Yoga Nearing Retreat, offering a valuable opportunity to strengthen and stabilise one’s Kalachakra commitments within the supportive conditions of retreat. Centred on the daily recitation and contemplation of the Six-Session Guru Yoga, the retreat creates space to renew samaya, deepen devotion to the guru and lineage, and reconnect with the profound vision of the Kalachakra mandala.

This will be an intensive retreat, with a mantra count to aim for over the course of the retreat and concluding with a burnt offering ritual (fire puja). Each day will include a period of instruction and another time for discussion, alongside several hours of practice. Apart from recitation during the sessions and the discussion periods, the retreat will be conducted largely in silence, creating the conditions for deeper concentration and experience to emerge.

With Alison Murdoch & Anna Colao: Thursday 21st-Sunday 24th January

In the Tibetan Buddhist tradition, love is beautifully understood as the wish for others – and oneself – to enjoy happiness and the causes of happiness. There’s no doubt that the world needs more happiness at this moment. So, what can we each do to grow our capacity for love in the coming year?

To help us explore this question, we will focus on the ‘Four Immeasurable Thoughts’ – a set of transformational qualities that have been cultivated in contemplative traditions for centuries, and which teachers such as The Dalai Lama consider to be the cornerstones for a loving, peaceful and fulfilling life.

With Roy Sutherwood: Friday 29th January – Friday 5th February

Mahamudra, often translated as “the great seal”, is one of the most profound and direct paths within Tibetan Buddhism. It offers a way of recognising the true nature of mind, beyond concepts and elaborations, leading to deep inner freedom.

Each day will include short sessions of guided meditation, supported by mindful movement to help sustain focus without over-exhaustion. In the Tibetan tradition presented here, we begin by resting in the clarity and awareness of mind—like a mirror becoming self-aware—and gradually move towards recognising the mirror’s own emptiness.

This step-by-step approach offers a profound method to realise liberation and enlightenment.

With Phara Khenchen Rinpoche (Tulku-la) & Di Carroll: Friday 12th February – Sunday 21st February

Medicine Buddha practice is particularly associated with healing, purification and the alleviation of suffering. This retreat offers an opportunity to step away from everyday life and spend sustained time with the practice, making prayers and dedications for our own wellbeing, for those who are unwell or experiencing difficulties, and ultimately for the healing and liberation of all beings.

Practicing together during the Fifteen Days of Miracles makes this a particularly meaningful time for retreat. Alongside Medicine Buddha practice and mantra recitation, there will be an opportunity to observe the Eight Mahayana Precepts for one day and to use this precious period to accumulate merit, purify negativities and make heartfelt aspirations.

Please note: Those attending need to have received the full kriya tantra medicine buddha empowerment or have received a Medicine Buddha ‘Je Nang’ (permission to practice).

With François Schick: Friday 25th – Monday 28th February

What does it mean to meet life’s difficulties with patience and courage?

Patience is the third of the Six Perfections – qualities developed by bodhisattvas on the path to awakening. Far from simply putting up with things, patience is a source of strength. It can help us stay steady when life is difficult, when others challenge us, and when our own path doesn’t unfold as we hoped.

The practice of patience gives us a chance to explore what happens when we meet frustration, anger, hardship or disappointment. Can difficult moments become opportunities to develop an inner strength rather fall into despair? Can we find ways to stay open and compassionate, even when things fall apart?

With the Woodland Working Team: Saturday 13th – Saturday 20th

More information coming soon…

With Geshe Tenzin Namdak: Friday 2nd April – Monday 5th April

Compassion, bodhicitta and the wisdom understanding emptiness are among the most important aspects of the Buddhist path to enlightenment. This retreat offers an opportunity to explore how these profound qualities can be developed and how they strengthen and support one another.

Geshe Namdak will guide us in exploring how we can cultivate these qualities within our own minds, drawing on rare and precious instructions from Dagpo Thangdar Lama’s Hidden Instructions on Bodhicitta and Changkya Rolpai Dorje’s Experiential Song on the View.

With Andy Wistreich: Friday 9th – Monday 12th April

EVAM points towards something at the heart of Highest Yoga Tantra: the nondual awareness of bliss and emptiness.

Rather than focusing on one particular deity or practice, this retreat will explore the common ground underlying different Highest Yoga Tantra systems. Drawing on teachings and practices from traditions including Vajrayogini, Yamantaka, Kalachakra, Guhyasamaja and Chakrasamvara, Andy Wistreich will guide participants in exploring the meaning of EVAM and what it reveals about the nature of ourselves, our experience and the world around us.

Alongside teachings and meditation, the retreat will include experiential practice in the natural environment, creating opportunities to explore emptiness and nonduality not simply as ideas, but in relation to our direct experience.

Please note: You must have received a highest yoga tantra initiation to attend this retreat

With Paula Chichester: Wednesday 21st April – Thursday 6th May

This retreat offers an opportunity to explore the completion stage practices of Vajrayogini, building upon an established foundation of the generation stage practice.

The first days of the retreat will introduce the completion stage practices and provide a foundation for the days that follow. The emphasis will then become increasingly experiential, with participants exploring the practices together and developing familiarity through meditation, physical practice and discussion.

The retreat will bring together traditional Vajrayogini practice with an awareness of the subtle body and the relationship between body, breath, energy and mind.

With Ven Mary Reavey: Tuesday 11th May – Sunday 16th May

Vipassana, often translated as insight or seeing clearly, invites us to look more deeply into the nature of our experience. Rather than simply following our usual assumptions about ourselves and the world around us, we learn to observe with greater clarity, curiosity and awareness.

This retreat offers an opportunity to explore Vipassana through meditation, mindfulness and enquiry. Building on the stability of attention developed through Shamatha practice, we will turn towards our experience itself — noticing the changing nature of thoughts, feelings, sensations and perceptions, and beginning to explore what they can reveal about the nature of reality.

There will be space both to learn and to practice, allowing insight to develop through direct experience rather than remaining simply an intellectual understanding.

With Ven Mary Reavey: Friday 25th June – Sunday 27th June

Death is something we will all experience, yet we rarely take time to consider how we might prepare for it. Buddhist teachings encourage us to face this reality not with fear, but as an opportunity to live with greater awareness and purpose.

Drawing on teachings on karma and the Five Powers, this retreat will explore how the way we live now can help us approach death with greater peace, understanding and fewer regrets. We will look at what we can do practically to prepare, as well as the qualities and states of mind we can cultivate throughout our lives.

By becoming more familiar with death, we can begin to understand what might support us when the time comes, while also discovering how an awareness of our mortality can help us live more fully now.

With Ven Tenzin Palmo: Friday 2nd July – Monday 5th July

This weekend retreat is based on the text ‘Approaching the Buddhist Path’ by His Holiness the Dalai Lama and Venerable Thubten Chodron, the first volume in The Library of Wisdom and Compassion. Drawing on the book’s accessible and practical approach, we will explore some of the foundations that help us understand what Buddhist practice is really about.

We will look at the way we see ourselves and the world, what we mean by happiness and a meaningful life, and how understanding our mind and emotions can open up the possibility of genuine change. We will also explore how to engage with Buddhist teachings: the place of questioning and reasoning, how faith and confidence develop, the role of a spiritual teacher, and how meditation and other practices can become part of everyday life.

Rather than simply accepting Buddhist ideas, the weekend offers space to investigate them, reflect on them and discover how they relate to our own experience.

With Paul Wielgus: Friday 9th – Sunday 11th July (9pm finish)

How do we stay open to life when the world around us can feel uncertain, painful or overwhelming?

Falling in Love with Life is a weekend gathering exploring what helps us come more fully alive—and how that aliveness can become part of a wise and compassionate response to the times in which we are living.

This retreat offers space to pause, reconnect and rediscover the qualities that help us meet uncertainty without becoming overwhelmed or closing down. We will make room for what is difficult in our world, while also turning towards what nourishes and sustains us: rest, connection, imagination, joy, wonder and our relationship with the living world.

With Ven Mary Reavey: Thursday 22nd July – Monday 26th July

Developing a regular practice can be challenging. We may have received teachings and know a range of practices, but bringing these together into something realistic and sustainable in everyday life can be much harder.

During this practical workshop you will have the opportunity to explore minimum, medium and more extensive approaches to daily practice and will be encouraged to develop a one day retreat plan focused on a Lam Rim topic.

The emphasis will not be on prescribing one particular routine, but on developing the structure, consistency and confidence to take greater responsibility for your own practice.

With Wendy Ridley: Friday 30th July – Sunday 1st August

A Mindful Heart is a new course developed by the Foundation for Developing Compassion and Wisdom (FDCW) which explores how our thoughts, emotions and perceptions shape our experience. Through mindfulness, reflection and discussion, we’ll discover ways to loosen unhelpful patterns, develop healthy self-confidence and cultivate greater compassion for ourselves and others.

Drawing on Buddhist wisdom, this retreat offers practical ways to understand the mind, transform unhelpful patterns, and relate to ourselves, others and the world with greater clarity, kindness and care.